I recently posted a short insight on Linkedin. A good friend read it and reached out for some advice about writing and whether he should start.

Usually, I’d recommend straight off the bat that publishing your thoughts is a positive thing. It helps you understand better what you know, it helps keep your friends and network up to date with what you are doing and it's a public record of your understanding - great for current and future connections to demonstrate your value.

But I had another thought when putting this in my message back to him.

Writing content is like adding another tool to your “get things done” toolbox.

Do you want to influence someone? Perhaps a potential employer, customer or colleague? Put your thoughts to paper and publish them, it's authentic and surprisingly effective what a short article can achieve.

Do you want to promote an event, activity or idea that you have? Insights online are an easy way to reach your wider network and also point specific people back to.

Do you want to lead your team? Get your thoughts into a digestible, public, format that your team and others can freely interact with. What you feel comfortable presenting to the world will be what your team feels comfortable in doing as well.

A few, short, easy to understand insights go a long way to opening doors and engaging people. So if you are asking yourself “should I write content?”. Perhaps instead ask “is there something I need to do - could writing insights be one of the tools that help me do it?”

Here at Passle we always ask our Users to ask themselves:

• Why did I write that post?
• Who did I write it for?

This way it becomes habit.